There finally appears to be an organized initiative coalescing around the need for data portability. David Recordon has spoken about the mix of existing open standards that could be used to accomplish this goal, and, in so doing, establish the foundation for something like a social network operating system. DataPortability.org sez:

Standardized Data Portability is the next great frontier for the web. As users, our identity, photos, videos and other forms of personal data should be discoverable by, and shared between our chosen tools or vendors. We need a DHCP for Identity. A distributed File System for data. This page will list the standards and contributors who are making it happen.

Word, son. They propose four primary issues: Economic Drivers, Privacy, Adoption/Buzz and Branding/Education. Each of these is supposed to have a related initiative, but thus far Project VRM, the Economic Drivers initiative, is the only one listed. Driving awareness and adoption and making the case for economic viability are all important and necessary goals. But, to me, the bigger question is what work is being done to define the types of data required for a robust personal identity network (identity, personal details, relationships, security APIs, syndication, etc.)? What are the criteria being used to evaluate which of these existing standards should be used?

I’m really glad that this initiative is under way, but for it to have the greatest opportunity for success, it needs to be as transparent as possible. The site is relatively new, so I bet we can look forward to greater detail emerging over time.